New Zealand News

Ferry pilots Earl Long and Joe Cowan flew out of Dead Cow International Airport, Wichita, on November 1O and cleared the Californian coast en route for Hilo. About 700km out over the Pacific an oil slick showed up on the starboard cowling. Though the instruments showed no sign of trouble the half-life engine gradually developed severe vibration and had to be closed down.

Long and Cowan turned back for California but weighed down with the best part of 18 hours fuel (586 gallons), the C-45 began to lose height. It was a bad time to realise no dump valve had been fitted by the ferry tank people and fully expecting to ditch the crew called up for a Coast Guard escort.

Soon the aircraft was down to 60ft and for the best part of 2½ hours it remained at this height. Long, a Wichita veteran of the CAF, found that by gunning the new engine to its limits, he could just maintain height aided apparently by the pressure troughs generated by the Pacific rollers.

They made the beachside airport at Monterey high on praise for Fiat, the Pacific swell and a fuel burn off which saved them by a whisker. Early reports point to a broken piston and a new Pratt & Whitney 985 was being fitted (at a cost of $NZ14,000).

The Expeditor was to join the 16th Wing’s three other airworthy machines, two Harvards and a Piper Cub. The unit formed eight years ago was the first CAF wing to be established outside the United States. At present it is negotiating to import an Avenger, probably from North America.

Rowell, an inveterate traveller and peruser of the world’s second-hand aircraft markets (when not desk-bound with Air New Zealand) came across the C-45 among a fleet of ag aircraft at a deceased estate auction in Plains. In an arrangement with a friendly counter bidder, they outmanoeuvred the spare parts merchants and scooped the little aircraft up for $US10,000. The former owner had outfitted it as a plush corporate machine for four passengers, but it will be reconfigured for six in New Zealand.

Says Rowell: “It was a spur-of-the-moment buy, but what an aristocrat. ” Some 6,000 C-45s were built in a production run which lasted from 1937 to the late 1950’s.

Air New Zealand Logs Record Net Profit

As forecast in the previous issue of Australian Aviation, Air New Zealand chalked up an operating profit for 1985/86 of $NZ105. 7 million, a fall of 31% on the previous year.

However, the consolidated net profit of the airline of $NZ186. 5 million was a record and attributable largely to the sale of aircraft. The airline earned more than $US70m from the disposal fo six older Boeing 737s and a DC-10 it formerly leased to Lan Chile.

Directors recommended a dividend of $NZ25 million to be paid to the Government, bringing the total dividend for the year to $NZ45 million representing a return of 37. 5% on paid-up capital.

Chairman Hugh Fletcher blamed the slip in profitability on the international oversupply of seat capacity “spawned in part by excessive optimism through a short period of 1984 and subsequent industry deregulation moves”. Fares slashing was rife, he noted.

Total revenue reached $NZ1280 million (up 11. 5%), but expenditure notched up an 18% increase. Passenger load factors were 70. 9% on international flights (up slightly) and 69. 4% on domestic services (down a fraction), while employee productivity continued climbing.

Fletcher predicted further deterioration in the average financial performance of international airlines and because of this the airline was being prudent in its increases in capacity and routes.

Expectedly, both Fletcher and managing director Norman Geary took the opportunity to criticise the Government’s domestic open skies policy and particularly the imminent arrival of the 50% Ansett-owned Ansett Brierley Newmans consortium operation.

The new airline, to be named Ansett New Zealand, is now expected to begin flying about May 1987. Air New Zealand vigorously opposes main trunk route competition and believes over time there could only be one significant carrier given the size of the New Zealand market, said Geary.

He added: “If two carriers survive it could only be in the artificial cost plus protected mode seen in Australia where the consumer pays in higher fares for the loss of economies of scale. Air New Zealand does not support such an outcome and intends to remain the leading carrier. ”

While verbiage runs hot at home in the two airline shape up, both parties are locked in an equally fierce tussle for the control of Western Samoa’s carrier, Polynesian Airlines. According to Auckland journalist, Graeme Kennedy, Ansett looks like winning.

Ansett’s five year management contract for Polynesian Airlines expires in February and in competition against a bid from Air New Zealand, it is seeking an extension.

Samoan Civil Aviation Minister Toeolesulusulu Toalepaiailii told Kennedy he was not impressed with the Air New Zealand proposal. It was not prepared to give a non-loss guarantee as Ansett was.

He dismissed as trifling an Air New Zealand offer of a low-interest loan of $NZ50,000. The Minster said he was dismayed by the refusal of the New Zealand Civil Aviation Minister, Richard Prebble, of a request to take Air New Zealand off the Auckland/ Apia route for five years to give Polynesian Airlines a monopoly.

“It is better for New Zealand to give us strength rather than hinder us. A five-year moratorium would give us time to strengthen our national carrier. ”

Ansett, which made Polynesian’s first profit this year since it took over management, is pushing for a ten year contract and, if successful, plans to replace its Boeing 737s with 767s.

RAAF Decision Embarrasses RNZAF

The RAAF’s October decision to accept four women for pilot training could not have caught RNZAF brass at a more embarrassing time.

Six weeks earlier, Rotorua schoolgirl Angela Manssen set off a paper war by writing to Prime Minister David Lange to complain that she saw no reason why, just because she was a female, she could not be accepted by the RNZAF as a pilot trainee. In a quixotic manner, Lange took the missive at full toss and continued running, openly putting the squeeze on the Service to change its macho ways.

Service chiefs fought back in the best way protocol would allow. A spate of articles appeared in the daily byline ‘Defence Reporter’ but was obviously nurtured elsewhere. They warned of the problems of romantic bonding, menstrual downs, separate loos, etc. but to no avail. Lange shifted the pressure onto his Minister of Defence, Frank O’Flynn (himself a WW2 pilot) who revealed that he had earlier broached the subject with Defence chiefs and got nowhere.

Defence’s defences crumpled a week after the RAAF capitulation. O’Flynn announced that the RNZAF would train eight women pilots and four women navigators. It was a trial programme, said O’Flynn, but qnly for non-combat roles. He added that it was likely to be followed by further women intakes and the possibility of them later being accepted for combat roles would remain open.

Immediate roles for the women aircrew are the crewing of VIP Andovers and Boeing 727s of the No40 Squadron. For the time being they have been ruled out for C-130 flying.

Meanwhile, Angela’s effort has been hailed as ‘a nice one’ by other ladies of the air, even though it is a reaffirmation of a value first learnt 40 years ago in the RAF Auxiliary.

NZ Landing Cost Surge

An airline surge of discontent was building in November with the Government’s decision to more than double international landing charges. The increases, announced by Civil Aviation Minister Richard Prebble, could make New Zealand the most expensive place in the world in which to put down a big jet.

The move is part of the Government’s user pay policy and is apparently an interim move while airports sort themselves out over the Airport Authorities Amendment Bill which will allow individual airports to function as companies and set their own landing charges.

The increases, to be introduced early next year, will push the landing charge for a Boeing 747 jet to more the $NZ7,000 – or $NZ21 on the average international ticket into the country. Airlines say they will have to recoup on ticket prices.

At present, the standard landing charge is $NZ9. 45 for each 1000 kilograms or $NZ3572 for the average 747. The new rate will go to $NZ19. 80 per 1000 kilos or $NZ7,484 for the average

747. By comparison, the average landing charges for the same aircraft are $NZ3500 at London, $NZ856 at Los Angeles, $NZ3750 at Nadi and $NZ32. 35 at Singapore.

Larger aircraft operating on local domestic services will be levied an additional 18% – these charges are based on revenue earnings.

Charges will also be levied on corporate aircraft and Civil Aviation’s own machines – previously most escaped the net because they could not be classified as revenue-earning flights.

The legislation encouraging the setting up of airport companies raises an interesting probability – cost-cutting competition between major airports in an effort to lure airline services. The two major adversaries lined up are Auckland and Christchurch and the benefit could well go Christchurch’s way with its nearness to tourist resorts and (arguably) superior airport and administration.

Hong Kong Link Reinstated

Direct services between Auckland and Hong Kong were to be resumed on December 4 following a break of nearly two years. The link was broken in early 1985 after Air Niugini pulled out of the tripartite arrangement with Air New Zealand and Cathay Pacific and a somewhat acerbic relationship developed between the New Zealand and Hong Kong airlines.

It appears the nub of the dispute, Cathay’s right to sell promotional fares out of Auckland for London via Hong Kong has been settled. Though details of the settlement were not made with the announcement, Cathay’s rather oblique wording suggests it won its case.

The two airlines were to operate in turn a year about on the route, beginning with Cathay Pacific. Perhaps as a token of rapprochement, the flights were to be designated CX southbound and TE northbound.

Efforts by three other Southeast Asian airlines, Garuda, Thai International and the Malaysian Airline System (MAS) to fly into New Zealand didn’t come to fruition until the end of 1987. While exploratory talks have been held, negotiations will not begin until March – and the Government has indicated only one may get the green light and that will be the one considered likely to deliver the most inbound traffic.

Bag Blowers

A few years ago, the prized squadron plaque for No3 Iroquois helicopter squadron, based at Hobsonville, was looking scruffy. The gold leaf was flaking and the artwork needed retouching. So airmen passed the hat around and raised a sizeable enough sum to send the object off to one of those venerable British establishments that specialize in such work.

Six months later (with the plaque half-forgotten) a bulky parcel bearing British stamps arrived in the hangar via normal Post Office delivery and undistinguished by any codes of Service delivery. Security was being tightened at the time and suspicious airmen called in the Service police to examine the parcel. The Brits had done a secure packaging job and all attempts to determine the contents without setting off a possible trigger mechanism failed.

So the parcel was gingerly taken to a remote corner of the airfield and with some ceremony (half the station in tin hats watching from a distance) blown up. Predictably, sufficient splinters of gilt and mahogany remained to identify the refurbished and now disintegrated squadron shield.

Echoes of the story resurfaced a few weeks ago when an Air New Zealand passenger boarded his aircraft at Christchurch and was then seen to leave the jet, rush back to the terminal and disappear. Airport Security twitched. Passengers and hold baggage were offloaded and aligned and two unclaimed suitcases were identified. Security had little options but to blow them to smithereens.

Whoever the passenger was, the debris indicated nothing more sinister than a last-minute change of mind over an out of town trip.